Re: Linguistic quirks: beside or against myself?

["Richard G. Combs" <richard -dot- combs -at- polycom -dot- com>]

Sankara S Rajanala wrote:

> The problem with next to or beside is, as I said,
> that there could be other columns in between. Or,
> as in a credit card receipt (check?), one would
> sign below or above the name. <snip>

"Find your name in the register and sign where indicated."

The register *does* indicate where to sign, doesn't it? If not, complain
about the user interface. :-)

FWIW, I'm with David Neely. In American English, "against" has strong
connotations of active opposition, whether abstract ("he is against me") or
concrete ("pushing (or leaning) against the wall"). I don't think Americans
would interpret "A is against B" to mean they are in physical proximity --
they would assume a conflict between A and B.

Richard


------
Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Voyant, a division of Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
richardDOTcombs AT voyanttechDOTcom
303-223-5111
------
rgcombs AT freeDASHmarketDOTnet
303-777-0436
------







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